Guilt!

[Jockice]

Right, about 15 years ago I asked some people for a bit of help with a project I was doing. Not really public figures apart from one who is very famous but the others are well-known in their field. Most of them were decent but one really went out of his way to give me a hand. We spoke on the phone, he posted me quite extensive details and then when I'd finished the thing he phoned me up again to find out how it all went, He was the only one of them who did this (although I have spoken to a couple of them since) so I was very grateful. He also asked me if I could send him a copy of the finished work. He was also the only participant to do this. Sure, I said. No problem. Then didn't.

I've felt shit about this ever since. I wasn't having a good time personally (it happened in the two year gap between losing one parent and finding out that the other was terminally ill too), plus I wasn't sure how he'd take the main part on his work (I really admire the bloke but can't really say I actually like much of it) so was thinking about slightly changing it before sending it but didn't do that either. But you know, he helped me out and I promised.

Anyway, I've been following him on Twitter for a couple of years. I rarely post on there but a few weeks ago I 'liked' something he posted and he started following me. So I grabbed my chance and sent him a personal message reminding him who I was (I'm sure I wasn't a major part of his life) and apologising profusely.  No reply. Until last night when he sent me a message saying there was no need to apologise, that he was happy to help and he wished me all the best. Phew! What an absolutely lovely bloke.

I have a really great sense of relief now. I was brought up a Catholic so am designed to feel guilty but that was one of the things that used to regularly run through my head when I woke up in the middle of the night. Along with something else I can't do anything about. in that case I was a child, but still old enough to know better than to do. He said enigmatically.

Guilt stories now please. Just imagine I'm the priest and you're doing confession. Forgive me Jockice because I have sinned. Etc.

[BlodwynPig]

Is this Prince Andrew?

[Jockice]

Is this Prince Andrew?

No. I'm Prince Andrew.

[Lordofthefiles]

When I was at college me and a mate managed to get into St. James Park to take photos (just walked up to the lass on the reception and asked if we could, and she gave us a couple of passes and in we went - them was the days, game's gone, etc).

Anyway, it was while they were ripping up the old Gallowgate end so the photos were great and worth something historically and they got us good marks back at college.

Now the guilty bit...

When we got down to pitch side there was a large group of down syndrome lads and their carers/wranglers.
The bloke in charge came across and asked if we'd take a photo.
Everyone piled into the home dugout (bit of a scuffle to be the one sitting in Kevin Keenan's seat).
We take the photo and the guy asks if there's any chance we could send home a copy of the photo so they could put it up at whatever care centre they were from. "Of course" we say and take the address.

I got as far as printing it in the darkroom, popping it in an envelope and putting a stamp on it.
But I never sent it. Must've got side tracked.

I can't believe that 25 years later (at least) I still feel massive guilt about this.
The memory of the grinning faces and my solemn promise to do the right thing fill my face with hot blood every time I think about having let them all down.

It's the little things isn't it?!!



TL;DR. Jockice's story but with different details.

[Jockice]

They're all Jockice's story but with different details when I've finished with them.

[Jockice]

I once sent a previously unpublished photograph of a certain famous person to someone doing a college project simply on the grounds that she was in a city I used to live in and that she promised to send me it back when she'd finished with it. That's nearly a quarter of a century ago and I'm still waiting. I hope that wakes her up at night too.

[Inspector Norse]

I once sent a previously unpublished photograph of a certain famous person to someone doing a college project simply on the grounds that she was in a city I used to live in and that she promised to send me it back when she'd finished with it. That's nearly a quarter of a century ago and I'm still waiting. I hope that wakes her up at night too.

Maybe she just hasn't finished with it yet.

[madhair60]

Can't reveal what I feel guilty about. Every few weeks it rams into my brain again and leaves me feeling utter terror.

[Dex Sawash]

I haven't posted the package of crap promised to obel for them winning the CaB euro football thing in 2015 I think it was. It is in a mailer envelope and ready to go out.

[ProvanFan]

Pissed on a bike

[pigamus]

When I was at uni twenty years ago I was supposed to have one final session with my creative writing tutor. Not only did I not go, I didn't bother ringing to say I wouldn't be coming. Proper lessons had stopped by then so she might have had to come in specially.

What a prick.

[Lordofthefiles]

Can't reveal what I feel guilty about. Every few weeks it rams into my brain again and leaves me feeling utter terror.

Aye, I could go to town in this thread if Barry Admin would activate any of the anonymous accounts I've tried to set up to cover my tracks / spare my blushes!!!

[bgmnts]

I've never really done anything bad like that so I can safely look down on all of you immoral shits.

It's lovely.

[Small Man Big Horse]

On New Year's Eve 1997 my friend Maxine slipped over on the stroke of midnight and tore a ligament in her ankle, we didn't know how bad it was at the time as she was very drunk but around 3am when trying to get back to the train station it became apparent just how much pain she was in. We asked for help from the people at the venue but they were useless, and so stumbled out in to the night all a bit fucked, when two women took pity on us and gave us a place to stay. I took their address down and promised to send them a thank you gift for their act of kindness, but never did get around to it, and still feel a bit guilty to this day. Well, the one or two occasions I think about it a year, anyhow.

[popcorn]

Can't reveal what I feel guilty about. Every few weeks it rams into my brain again and leaves me feeling utter terror.

I know what you did.

[Danger Man]

Can't reveal what I feel guilty about. Every few weeks it rams into my brain again and leaves me feeling utter terror.

Gamergate thread. Obviously.

[Jockice]

Pissed on a bike

Drunken cycling or urinating on one? Be more specific.

When I was in my late teens I'd been on a night out with some school friends and we walked past a parked car where the driver had carelessly left his window slightly wound down.  Prime target for a break-in you'd have thought, but instead one of the other lads had a better idea. He was a tall geezer so he decided to piss on the window and see how much he could actually get into the car. Which was quite a bit. On the seat.

I have to admit I found it funny at the time but I feel guilty about it nowadays, even though I was just a bystander. But what would you rather have, a stranger going through your glove compartment or thinking 'whoops, I'm glad nobody noticed that open window' and then sitting down?

[Rizla]

Much guilt. The latest - played a christmas bash at a right posh golf club last night, ended the evening by tanning a big glass of what i thought was just some leftover red plonk from dinner sitting in a decanter on the bar.  £180 bottle. FUCK

[alan nagsworth]

Most bad things in my life have caused me so much anxiety holding onto them for years that nowadays I try my best to own up to mistakes and apologise to people as much as possible. Almost everyone is forgiving if you go this route. It's very easy to get caught up in your own head and imagine that life is like Curb Your Enthusiasm where no one lets anything go and any wrongdoing end up snowballing and having catastrophic repercussions, but thankfully people in general are far kinder than we choose to believe. 'Christ, they probably fucking hate me for that', when in reality they have likely forgotten about it.

That musing aside, last night I finally had to open up to someone very close to me about something I'd let eat away at me for the last decade but in recent months had ended up being something that now would affect us both in the near future if I didn't come clean. I don't want to go into details but the anxiety of running away from something for so long and the sudden guilt of having kept this away from this person and hurting their feelings when I admitted it has been very hard on me. As if I didn't hate myself enough already!

[wooders1978]

I found out yesterday that a former friend who assaulted me, twice, the second occasion quite badly, topped himself a few weeks back - my initial feeling of hearing the news was one of elation and the this country "he's dead" song immediately sprang to mind
The next day however and on reflection obviously he was in a lot of pain, the assaults basically derided from me not really wanting to hang out with him anymore as he was too much of a nutter - first one more of a fight really over money, the second one however, sucker punched and a kicking, was over a supposed assault on his cousin which I had carried out - he was so convinced I'd done it, his mates pulled him off me and got me outta there coz he was actually trying to kill me - needless to say we never spoke since in the last 20 odd years
Anyway - I feel bad about being a but pleased with his demise initially - after all, we were pretty good friends for a long time

[alan nagsworth]

That's very sad, I'm sorry to hear it. Don't beat yourself up too much - after all it sounds like he did enough of that for you!! - 'to err is human' and all that. Grief takes weird forms and you never know how it's going to affect you as you can never really fully prepare for it.

[bgmnts]

I was pretty happy when my drug addict neighbour - who broke into our flat twice and made our lives a general misery - died last year. I don't feel guilt about that at all. Praying that the utter cunt who put him up goes next, she's an awful human.

[garbed_attic]

Definitely my predominant emotion. I sometimes wish I could make gout_pony of 2008 rather than gout_pony of 2019 be the one with the guilt... but if it makes me a more careful and considerate person, then it's probably all for the best. Ultimately I'd rather feel guilty and anxious than not be so and risk hurting others.

Also, it strikes me as near paradoxical that the people who arguably should feel the most guilt are often going to be those who are least self-aware and so least inclined to feel so. Ah well.

[solidified gruel merchant]

Drunken cycling or urinating on one? Be more specific.

And if urinating on one, having a piss while riding a bike or actually pissing onto a bike? JUST SAY WHAT YOU MEAN!!!

[H-O-W-L]

Call me a monster but if I found out the woman who abused me for six years had popped her rotten clogs I'd be laughing until dawn. And then I would forget her stupid cunt self and leave her to be ash.

[ProvanFan]

To clarify then, I was standing still and I pissed on a younger boy's bicycle.

I apologised to him years later and he seemed uncomfortable that I'd brought it up.

[Brundle-Fly]

I found out yesterday that a former friend who assaulted me, twice, the second occasion quite badly, topped himself a few weeks back - my initial feeling of hearing the news was one of elation and the this country "he's dead" song immediately sprang to mind
The next day however and on reflection obviously he was in a lot of pain, the assaults basically derided from me not really wanting to hang out with him anymore as he was too much of a nutter - first one more of a fight really over money, the second one however, sucker punched and a kicking, was over a supposed assault on his cousin which I had carried out - he was so convinced I'd done it, his mates pulled him off me and got me outta there coz he was actually trying to kill me - needless to say we never spoke since in the last 20 odd years
Anyway - I feel bad about being a but pleased with his demise initially - after all, we were pretty good friends for a long time

I had an old schoolmate like that I had to cut loose after I watched him bite off a chunk of my mate's ear in a "playfight" in the kitchen of a Boxing day soiree at the end of the night. I'd often seen flashes of this menacing behavior from this deeply angry ex-convict over the years and I thought I'd nip it in the bud after that. I was in my late forties at this point and just don't need this aggro in my life anymore. I wasn't prepared to wake up in A&E over an argument on who ordered the extra pilau rice.

I'd lost touch with him after 1990 because I found his split personality too scary but by chance caught up with him again in the Summer of 2012 and we rekindled our friendship until Xmas. I do feel a bit guilty because he could be exciting to hang out but obviously has issues.
I valued my life more.

[Icehaven]

I found out yesterday that a former friend who assaulted me, twice, the second occasion quite badly, topped himself a few weeks back - my initial feeling of hearing the news was one of elation and the this country "he's dead" song immediately sprang to mind
The next day however and on reflection obviously he was in a lot of pain, the assaults basically derided from me not really wanting to hang out with him anymore as he was too much of a nutter - first one more of a fight really over money, the second one however, sucker punched and a kicking, was over a supposed assault on his cousin which I had carried out - he was so convinced I'd done it, his mates pulled him off me and got me outta there coz he was actually trying to kill me - needless to say we never spoke since in the last 20 odd years
Anyway - I feel bad about being a but pleased with his demise initially - after all, we were pretty good friends for a long time

Not quite as serious as that but there was a lad I went to sixth form with who was absolutely vile to me and plenty of others for no reason at all, just downright nasty, constantly making cruel personal comments and mocking people's appearance (and he was no oil painting either, he was a spotty little shithead). We only put up with him as he'd grown up with two of our friends and their parents were all friends too so they didn't feel like they could tell him to feck off (and obviously he was too canny to be nasty to them).

Anyway a couple of years after 6th form I heard he'd tried to kill himself and nearly succeeded. It was hard to feel much sympathy, and sorry to say it was almost gratifying to know when he was working so hard on making other people feel crap about themselves he was probably feeling even worse himself, - armchair psychology time - that being so outwardly horrible was likely him turning his self-hatred on everyone else, something like that, and it's not like I had to deal with him anymore anyway so I was just indifferent really. 

[holyzombiejesus]

One NYE about 30 years ago, I got off with a girl called Amy. She was so lovely, really pretty and a good person. We got up to all sorts of mucky shenanigans and I left the house in the morning agreeing to see her at the club we went to every Monday night. I went to the club but despite liking her, completely blanked her. I think about this quite often and even tried to find her on Facebook (couldn't) as it was such a cruel thing to do. I still don't know why I ignored her, I guess I was quite immature.

The other thing that plays on my mind is when loads of other kids in my class encouraged me to hit another pupil. I jumped off a chair and landed on top of him and then hit him. It must have been so humiliating and he'd done nothing particularly wrong, I wish I could say sorry to him (although I guess that's more to assuage my guilt).

There was one other time when my little sister had been on holiday and bought me a Donald Duck money box. We took our dogs for a walk and something happened and I made her cry. I remember her sobbing, saying that she'd spent loads on my money box. This happened about 40 years ago. I said sorry to her recently and she called me a Joey.

[neveragain]

When I was living in a "granny flat" (a small extension to the house of my landlord, who was a vicar funnily enough) in the Wirral, mail for the previous tenants (a friend or relative of said vicar) kept coming. And continued to do so despite my telling the vicar to inform the previous tenants who would then hopefully inform this one particular sender - and it was just the one - about their new address. I don't know why it got to me so much, though I wasn't having the best of times, but anyway one day I snapped and ripped the latest envelope in two. And then into four. Purest rage! Then what did I see?

Old family photographs ripped to shreds. I performed some haphazard sellotaping and dropped the results through the vicar's door with a note of apology. Didn't get any more of their letters though.